Paul Howard

And I went to I think it was 17 sports shops trying to buy an England football jersey.

And, you know, there was sort of I could buy a Scotland, one of Wales, one Northern Ireland, Cameroon, you know, every every team you could imagine.

But no, but no England jersey.

And at the time, I kind of thought this was evidence of Anglophobia.

And there was a really good review of the program by the journalist Liam Mackey.

And he said, no, no, it's not Anglophobia.

It's all down to Jimmy Hill.

And like this is the thing we can't discount from the conversation that Jimmy Hill was, you know, this sort of flag waving TV host who.

you know, wore a bow tie with the George's cross on it, you know, and cheered on England on the BBC in, you know, a really kind of nationalistic way.

And there's definitely something in that, that the sort of commentators and the former players still to this day have this sense of entitlement that England has

you know, as the inventors of the game have this birthright to win the tournament.

And, you know, it's a sort of 30 years of hurt thing, you know, that came out in It's Coming Home, but it's 60 years of hurt now.

Yeah, that is their entitlement.

And really, you know, England...

There was a sort of seminal match in the 1950s when England played Hungary at Wembley and Hungary completely destroyed them.

And they were playing football, you know, from a different dimension.

And it was a big wake up moment for England where they realised that we invented this game, but we are no longer the standard bearers.

But I don't know, they won the World Cup in 66 and then they seem to forget that lesson.

So there is this sense of, you know, I've been listening to podcasts over the last few days where former England players who are now pundits are saying, are predicting that England will win.

And, you know, there's absolutely no objective reason to believe that England will even be in the last four of this tournament.